G. Hardcastle
The enclosure bore a mere handful of lines in a minuscule handwriting:
Royal Duke, 17 October
Sir:
This by pigeon to Admiralty House Portsmouth, with request it be forwarded to you by courier.
I have broken the "Ahab-Jehu" cipher. I respectfully submit that it would be most desirable were you to return aboard forthwith, to examine the messages I will have decoded by your arrival.
Your obedient servant, in haste,
F. Taylor
Master's Mate
"S. Taylor?" Who the devil was S. Taylor? Hoare cudgeled his mind, then remembered. S. Taylor was the big woman whom Mr. Clay had identified as Royal Duke's resident cryptographer and mathematician. She was Sarah Taylor, and she was, indeed, rated Master's Mate.
"Hell," Hoare whispered to himself. Here he was, in hot pursuit of the Captains' killers and his courtship, and this petticoat sailor had the audacity to virtually order him back aboard his own command. Really, between her and the nearly insolent Thoday, he began to wonder who commanded whom. It put him quite out of patience. Besides, why could she not have given him some clue as to what made the matter so urgent, so as to help him make up his mind whether to go or to stay?
He returned to the inn, Rabbett at his heels, and called upstairs for Thoday.
"Mr. Thoday," Hoare said when the man appeared, "what is your opinion of Taylor?" "Sarah Taylor, sir?"
"Is she a levelheaded person or a flibbertigibbet?"
Thoday pondered. "A competent seaman-sea person, perhaps I should say, sir, and an arithmetician of distinction. I have even heard that, were she a man, she might be admitted to the Royal Society."
"That's all very well. But how is she for common sense?" Hoare showed Thoday the message.
"If she thinks you should return to Portsmouth, sir, you probably should-"
"Not, I hope, sir, before I hand you whatever crumbs of knowledge I have been able to gather up from beneath the tables of Dorchester."
"You may do so over breakfast, Rabbett," Hoare said. "Judging from the speed of your march, you must be hungry."
"I'll not deny it, sir," Rabbett said, and began. Indeed, he found it possible to take on a small mountain of steak-and-kidney pie without interrupting his report.
"The folk for miles about the Winterbournes," he said in a whining narrative drone, as if he had memorized it, "for there are twelve of them-Winterbourne Abbas, which you know already, sir, Winterbourne Monckton, Winterbourne Herringston, Winterbourne Steepleton, and eight others- are convinced that the deaths are connected with Satan worship. Or, if not, the worship of the Old Gods. And who is to say which of the two is the lesser evil?"
"Who, indeed?" Hoare breathed, letting his mind escape the clerk's recital. Rabbett's mention of "the lesser evil" reminded him of the jape invented by one of the more successful frigate Captains-Bolitho? Cochrane? He was wont to challenge a new acquaintance to a wager upon which of two beetle larvae, chosen at random from among those tapped from a piece of ship's biscuit, would be the first to reach the edge of the table. The unwitting newcomer naturally chose the larger grub. When it lost, as it always did, Captain Whoever would joyfully advise the stranger "always to select the lesser of two weevils" and nearly burst his breeches with laughter at his own paltry jest.
Aubrey. That was the joker's name. Lucky Jack Aubrey, they called him, from the wealth of prize money he had won at sea-and squandered ashore.
Hoare kicked himself back to what Rabbett was saying.
"For it is well known that our ancient ancestors did, indeed, hold their ceremonials there. The Circle antedates even the Druids, as I understand. Even now, shepherds and travelers report strange lights by night, and peculiar offerings have been found from time to time on the great flat stone in its middle-a bunch of mistletoe, for instance, a corn dolly in season, even a white cockerel."
Thinking back to yesterday's visit with Dunaway, Hoare was certain he could account for the strange lights. And Thoday had drawn what must be the right conclusion from the withered fragments of flower garlands. They were involved with Rabbett's "offerings."
"And what did you discover among the officials of the town?" Hoare asked.
Rabbett shook his head. "Nothing, sir. The gentry are closemouthed to such as I. But the other captain, Captain Spurrier, that is, is ill-regarded among us common folk. Feared, in fact. He was once preached against in the Church of All Angels-you remember, where they took the poor Captains' bodies. Captain Spurrier has done almost nothing to track down the murderers of the two Captains."
"And the inquest?"
"Has been indefinitely postponed, sir. Captain Spurrier departed Dorchester at speed on Saturday for an unknown destination, directly after your own departure for Weymouth."
Thoday, too, had drawn a blank. No one in Weymouth town had more than rumor to pass on about the deaths of the Captains Getchell. In fact, they had seemed reluctant to discuss the matter at all. More than one had suggested that Thoday apply to Sir Thomas Frobisher for information, but Sir Thomas was away.
" 'A-courting,' one of them told me, sir," Thoday said. " 'At his age.'
"The frog he would a-wooing go," he added.
Hoare sighed. A block had been put in the way of his chase. He might as well face reality and return to duty.
"Our business here in Weymouth seems to be concluded for now," he said. "There is nothing to keep us here.
"You two, Rabbett and Thoday, return to Dorchester and keep the investigation moving from there. I shall accompany you in the chaise and continue on to Portsmouth… Find the missing evidence-the head, the two drivers, the Admiralty chaise. Surely the chaise, at least, can be traced. Learn of any strangers, especially any with foreign accents. Keep me informed.
"In fact, I shall need to be kept informed on a frequent, regular basis. But none of us can afford the time to travel between Dorchester and Portsmouth… So as to halve the time needed in travel, then," he whispered, "let us arrange regular meetings-weekly, say-at a point halfway between here… and Portsmouth. A place that we can reach easily by sea or by land.
"You, Thoday, can meet with Rabbett beforehand to collect whatever news he may have gathered, and bring the… consolidated information to-to where?"
He turned to Rabbett, whose knowledge of the land he was beginning to find invaluable.
"Christchurch, I'd suggest, sir," the clerk said. "As you know, 'tis well south of the direct way from Portsmouth, but 'tis on the coast. By land, I believe it a long day's ride from either direction, perhaps forty miles all told. And you would know better than I, sir, about access by sea.
"The Crown would be your best base there, sir."
Hoare sighed again. Planning of this kind implied that the road to the solving of the two Captains' deaths would be a long one, and dreary.
Thoday had raised his eyebrows halfway through Hoare's orders, and they were still raised.
"You look dubious, Thoday. Spit it out, man."
"The plan is less than satisfactory, sir," he said. "There may be times when a lack of progress makes it injudicious to waste any time whatsoever on travel, and there may, I would hope, be times when the need to confer is urgent."
"True enough, Thoday," Hoare said. "But I can hardly change the geography of Britain to suit our convenience. Do you have a better proposal?" Mentally, he crossed his arms smugly and waited for the man to admit he did not.
"Hancock, sir. Yeoman of signals in Royal Duke, as I need not remind you. He gives me to understand that within a few days of their removal to a new location, weather permitting, his birds can be trained to return thence quite reliably. I think it requires several trips, each of which increases the distance they must travel. You could send Hancock here to Dorchester with a covey or flock, or batch, of them. He could train them to think of a local cote or pen or hutch as home, then return with them to Royal Duke. They can then be used to carry the news to us in Dorchester. And vice versa, of course, for messages to your ship."